Friends, #WhatchaReading ? I read Mrs. Milner Gets a Kitchen by Jane Hadley. Ping @SuperWendy -- it's a 1950s historical set in a "from the old country" American neighborhood!
A divorced mother dealing with a lot of social pressure & stigma falls for the sweet and sexy contractor installing her gloriously 1950s kitchen.
Happy #InternationalDayOfTransgenderVisibility! Today I'm reading "Jesse's Girl" by Reese Morrison, a romance novella detailing trans representation and identity.
I'm aiming to be more intentional about reading diversely, so this will be the first of many books featuring trans characters and/or written by trans authors.
If you have any recs, please let me know. Thank you!
I definitely read the entire thing in a southern accent! Something I really enjoy is seeing authors compare different types of love in their books; love that isn't really sincere or healthy vs. love that's more genuine and true, and this book does that. Though, I will say this book won't be everyone's cup of tea...
Two years ago last week, I shifted my reading preferences to #RomanceBooks.
In that time, I started 498 books, finishing 473 (~95%). Most were audiobooks, for ~4200 hours.
I rated ~11% at 5/5⭐️.
~90% were queer, which, on average, I rated ~½⭐️ higher than straight romances. About half of those queer books were written by authors who explicitly identify as queer.
For my :pride_asexual: peers: not all #RomanceBooks have sex! Around 10% of the romances I've read don't have any, or only allude to it happening off-page. Another 5-10% have depictions of sex, but it's not a driving point in the story.
Some romances even center asexual / a-spec main characters. I've even read a few romances with explicitly :pride_aromantic: main characters.
If that sounds like a contradiction, that's a great reason to pick up a romance and expand your boundaries.
Not all #RomanceBooks are awesome or healthy. Some books are, frankly, super toxic.
But there are so many healthy romance books which will absolutely ruin you with how much they will make you feel — not necessarily in a good or bad way, just in raw emotion. And those really impactful books aren't all in one subgenre — if you have a favorite flavor in your stories, odds are there's a solid 5⭐️ gateway romance book waiting for you.